The Moerman Diet

Stephen Barrett, M.D.

Cornelis Morman, M.D. (893-1988) was a Dutch physician who
pacticed medicine for nearly 50 years. In the 1930s, he began
experimenting with pigeons and claimed to have found "mysterious
suppressors" of the cancer cell -- "eight essential
substances" that can keep humans healthy. He also claimed:

Chronic deficiency of these substances leads to metabolic
disturbances, anomalies of regeneration tissue, and alkalosis
that enabled microorganisms he called "symbionts" to
transform healthy cells into cancer cells.

Symbionts" were visible in the blood of healthy patients
but the blood of cancer patients was "crawling" with
them.

A lactovegetarian diet plus supplements of vitamins A, B,
C, and E, iodine, sulfur, iron, and citric acid (later supplemented
vitamin D and selenium) would prevent or cure the cancers by
robbing the "symbionts" of their growth medium.

Proponents claim that Moerman's diet was approved by the Dutch
Ministry of Health in 1987 based on government-supported research.
However, in 1988, the Swiss Cancer League's Study Group on Unproven
Methods of Oncology investigated this claim and reported: "At
the beginning of the 1980s the Dutch government supported a prospective
trial to investigate the effectiveness of the Moerman therapy.
After the study had begun, the Moerman doctors dropped out one
after the other, and the study had to be terminated without any
results being obtained." [1] The Study Group also concluded:

The results of Moerman's pigeon experiments, as far ir could
tell, have never been published.

Moerman's postulated "symbionts" were never scientifically
demonstareted to exist.

Moerman himself provided rudimentary (anecdotal) reports
[1].

Reference

Study Group on Unproven Methods of Oncology. Cancer cure
by the Dr. Moerman diet and therapy. Swiss Cancer League File
No. 24E, 1988.